


in which Derek ties an emotional bowline

by ministarninja



Series: This is the way we fall in love [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, I'm the one writing it and I'm like, M/M, Realization, and they were ROOMMATES, bro please, bros being bros right, it's kinda gay, they are not currently roommates, you're clearly feeling something else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 16:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20623811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ministarninja/pseuds/ministarninja
Summary: Derek was feeling lots of things. Most of which he could unravel and identify:•	He was stressed about his latest writing project because the words weren’t coming to him the way they usually did•	He was excited for the weekend because there would be a kegster to celebrate their latest hockey win earlier that week•	He was extremely happy that Shitty, Lardo, Ransom and Holster were going to come and visit•	He was also sad to hear that his parents called to let him know their dog was missing him and had taken to sleeping in his closet.But right now there is clearly something else he's feeling. And it's all wrapped and knotted around Dex.





	in which Derek ties an emotional bowline

**Author's Note:**

> Part 3 of This is the way we fall in love. Can be read by itself or with the whole series.
> 
> Fun fact: I studied for 2 years in technical theatre conservatory, and I still can't tie a bowline knot. Thus the title of this story. It's a fairly important knot you should know, and yet every time it comes up I have no clue how to do it until someone shows me again. 
> 
> Please enjoy this little story of an emotionally exhausted hockey boy.
> 
> <3

Derek could very easily identify lots of things he felt most of the time. He’s worked very hard to do so. Now, he’s been feeling something like a knot in his mind that was all tied around Will. Nothing had changed really. Since the whole water bottle thing, everything had been- objectively- good. They still riled each other up and everything. Nothing extreme. Just chirpy. Will was still living in the basement. Neither had started a discussion of him moving back into their room. Derek had to laugh at that.

“Let’s go study _our_ room,”

he’d say as they walked into the Haus after dinner.

Sometimes they would study. Sometimes they binged _Queer Eye_. Sometimes they played video games. No matter what it was, they did it _together_ in _their_ room. They’d hang out way later than they should. Eventually, almost always after one in the morning, Will would say he needed to get away from Derek. He never said that. Instead what he said was:

“I’ve had a good time, but I need to sleep in _my_ bed.”

Or:

“It’s _way_ too late to be kicking your ass at Mario Kart.”

And one time:

“Fuck off Nurse, go to bed. And I’m taking _our_ water bottle.”

Derek didn’t know what was happening. Things were better but nothing improved. He turned his attention back to the blank word document in front of him. There weren’t any words for him. He had been trying to get them to show up for the past hour, and they weren’t coming. He closed his computer; flopped onto his bed with his journal and started to flip through it. That journal was a long-term project, an observation journal. He was supposed observe his surroundings for ten minutes. Then he was to write about all the sights, sounds and smells. As he flipped through it, he started to notice something. As the days went on, there was more and more observations about Will

At first it would just mention Will’s presence in the library or at dinner. A week and a half later he started to write down particularly good chirps directed at him from Will. (excuse him for wanting to find the perfect time to get back at Will for asking Derek, “You want to flip a coin against me to see who picks teams first? The dib flip wasn't a big enough loss for you?”) After that there was…a very detailed account of the day he lost his water bottle. From there he had entire pages dedicated to the way Will would mutter to himself while huddled over a program he didn’t get, or the way the back of his hair looked after the helmet came off, there were scattered entries describing the way Will’s freckles looked depending on how heated he was about the current discussion. There was even section about the way that Will looked at him and their room as he tiptoed down to the fucking basement.

This journal, Derek decided, was not meant to be seen by another living soul.

After the observations that _aren’t_ obsessively about William Poindexter are transferred to a fresh notebook, Derek starts to think. He turns the lights out and meditates. He ends up trying to untangle his knot of feelings. Slowly he pulls out the easy threads. Stress. Excitement. Happiness. Sadness. There are some that are intertwined, like the anxiety of the upcoming games paired with the adrenaline of being on the ice again. After an hour he was left with the threads that led him to what he wrote about Will. That was a whole other knot to unravel.

He found loneliness first.

He found that he missed Will. He was lonely without him. There was a hole in his life ever since the fight and the move to the basement. There was too much space in their room. The room was messy just to make it feel more lived in. But there were odd gaps: the extra room in the closet where Will’s stuff used to be hung up; the empty spaces on the walls from Will’s posters; the bottom bunk was a massive hole that reminded him of the mistakes they made. Will just dragged his mattress downstairs, so now the bottom bunk was just…some creaky wooden planks. It was the biggest hole in the room. Two weeks ago, he bought some fabric to cover it up. Try and fill up the gaping void with the most obnoxious tie-dye flannel with a curtain tucked underneath his mattress. Will never even said anything about it. And he hates tie-dye.

Splitting off from the feeling of loneliness; he found the feeling of longing. There wasn’t an extra set of breathing when he woke up in the middle of the night with artistic inspiration. There wasn’t an extra alarm going off three minutes after his in the morning followed by a stupid amount of chirping and giggling about how they were always the last ones out of the Haus for morning skate (by the time they were out the door the rest of the Haus was about half-way to Faber.) They always raced each other to the rink- loser had to buy the other an energy drink. He even missed their late-night arguments where they would try (after getting some not-so-sly questions from Chowder, they learned they failed) to sort things out via a silent wrestling match. According to Will, that was how he and his brothers would solve everything. These however had been put on hold after a particularly frustrating round of losses in Smash Bros. Will pounced on Derek while they were both on the top bunk. Both fell out of the bed and Derek nearly broke his arm. Bitty gave them a very stern talking to and withheld all baked goods for a week.

Derek had no clue what was happening. He could feel something beyond the loneliness, and longing. He reached further finding regret for The Split; the guilt of brushing off any and all questions from the rest of the team about what happened; the way he could never bring it up with Will as he snuck back to the basement. He found joy when they were together: in their room; whenever they were together pretending that everything was normal; when Chowder looked at them and laughed instead of shifting his eyes back and forth like they would implode at any second. He found eagerness to be alone with Will; to be half-drunk watching a bad movie on the weekend; to be arguing about who got the water bottle on the nightstand when they were out on a roadie.

He finds very less than platonic feelings for his ex-roommate.

With a deep sigh, Derek finally opens his eyes. He goes to the bathroom and throws water in his face. He studies himself in the mirror. Yes, he is sober. No, this is not a dream. Yes, this is actually happening, and he is freaking out about it. No, he has no idea what to do about it now or who to talk to.

So Derek decides to do what he does best when he can’t deal with his emotions: he grabs his computer; locks himself in the bathroom; sits on the tiles with his back to the door; and starts to write.

**Author's Note:**

> OoOOooh it's strating to get GAY and there is DRAMA. I've locked down a direction for this whole thing, but if there's something specific you'd like to see, let me know! I'll try and squeeze it in.


End file.
